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7 lines
14 KiB
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<p>Here we have a prophecy, as elsewhere we have a history, of the wars of the Lord, which we are sure are all both righteous and successful. This world, as it is his creature, he does good to; but as it is in the interest of Satan, who is called <i>the god of this world</i>, he fights against it.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">I. Here is the trumpet sounded and the war proclaimed, <a class="bibleref" title="Isa.34.1" href="/passage/?search=Isa.34.1">Isa. 34:1</a>. All nations must hear and hearken, not only because what God is about to do is well worthy their remark (as <a class="bibleref" title="Isa.33.13" href="/passage/?search=Isa.33.13">Isa. 33:13</a>), but because they are all concerned in it; it is with them that God has a quarrel; it is against them that God is coming forth in wrath. Let them all take notice that the great God is angry with them; his indignation is upon all nations, and therefore let all nations come near to hear. <i>The trumpet is blown in the city</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Amos.3.6" href="/passage/?search=Amos.3.6">Amos 3:6</a>), <i>and the watchmen on the walls cry, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.6.17" href="/passage/?search=Jer.6.17">Jer. 6:17</a>. <i>Let the earth hear, and the fulness thereof, for it is the Lord’s</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Ps.24.1" href="/passage/?search=Ps.24.1">Ps. 24:1</a>) and ought to hearken to its Maker and Master. The world must hear, and <i>all things that come forth of it</i>, the children of men, that are of the earth earthy, come out of it, and must return to it; or the inanimate products of the earth are called to, as more likely to hearken than sinners, whose hearts are hardened against the calls of God. <i>Hear, O you mountains! the Lord’s controversy</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Mic.6.2" href="/passage/?search=Mic.6.2">Mic. 6:2</a>. It is so just a controversy that all the world may be safely appealed to concerning the equity of it.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">II. Here is the manifesto published, setting forth,</p>
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<p class="tab-1">1. Whom he makes war against (<a class="bibleref" title="Isa.34.2" href="/passage/?search=Isa.34.2">Isa. 34:2</a>): <i>The indignation of the Lord is upon all nations</i>; they are all in confederacy against God and religion, all in the interests of the devil, and therefore he is angry with them all, even with all the nations that forget him. He has long <i>suffered all nations to walk in their own ways</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Acts.14.16" href="/passage/?search=Acts.14.16">Acts 14:16</a>), but now he will no longer keep silence. As they have all had the benefit of his patience, so they must all expect now to feel his resentments. <i>His fury is</i> in a special manner <i>upon all their armies</i>, (1.) Because with them they have done mischief to the people of God; those are they that have made bloody work with them, and therefore they must be sure to have blood given them to drink. (2.) Because with them they hope to make their part good against the justice and power of God they trust to them as their defence, and therefore on them, in the first place, God’s fury will come. Armies before God’s fury are but as dry stubble before a consuming fire, though ever so numerous and courageous.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">2. Whom he makes war for, and what are the grounds and reasons of the war (<a class="bibleref" title="Isa.34.8" href="/passage/?search=Isa.34.8">Isa. 34:8</a>): <i>It is the day of the Lord’s vengeance</i>, and he it is <i>to whom vengeance belongs</i>, and who is never <i>unrighteous in taking vengeance</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Rom.3.5" href="/passage/?search=Rom.3.5">Rom. 3:5</a>. As there is a day of the Lord’s patience, so there will be a day of his vengeance; for, though he bear long, he will not bear always. It is <i>the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion</i>. Zion is the holy city, the city of our solemnities, a type and figure of the church of God in the world. Zion has a just quarrel with her neighbours for the wrongs they have done her, for all their treacherous and barbarous usage of her, profaning her holy things, laying waste her palaces, and slaying her sons. She has left it to God to plead her cause, and he will do so when the time, even the set time, to favour Zion shall have come; then he will recompense to her persecutors and oppressors all the mischiefs they have done her. The controversy will be decided, that Zion has been wronged, and therein Zion’s God has been himself abused. Judgment will be given upon this decision, and execution done. Note, There is a time prefixed in the divine counsels for the deliverance of the church and the destruction of her enemies, a year of the redeemed, which will come, <i>a year of recompences for the controversy of Zion</i>; and we must patiently wait till then, and <i>judge nothing before the time</i>.</p>
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<p class="tab-1">III. Here are the operations of the war, and the methods of it, settled, with an infallible assurance of success. 1. The sword of the Lord is <i>bathed in heaven</i>; this is all the preparation here made for the war, <a class="bibleref" title="Isa.34.5" href="/passage/?search=Isa.34.5">Isa. 34:5</a>. It may probably allude to some custom they had then of bathing their swords in some liquor or other, to harden them or brighten them; it is the same with the furbishing of it, that it may glitter, <a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.21.9-Ezek.21.11" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.21.9-Ezek.21.11">Ezek. 21:9-11</a>. God’s sword is bathed in heaven, in his counsel and decree, in his justice and power, and then there is not standing before it. 2. <i>It shall come down</i>. What he has determined shall without fail be put in execution. It shall come down from heaven, and the higher the place is, whence it comes, the heavier will it fall. It will come down <i>upon Idumea, the people of God’s curse</i>, the people that lie under his curse and are by it doomed to destruction. Miserable, for ever miserable, are those that have by their sins made themselves the people of God’s curse; for the sword of the Lord will infallibly attend the curse of the Lord and execute the sentences of it; and those whom he curses are cursed indeed. It shall come down <i>to judgment</i>, to execute judgment upon sinners. Note, God’s sword of war is always a sword of justice. It is observed of him out of whose mouth goeth the sharp sword that <i>in righteousness he doth judge and make war</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Rev.19.11,Rev.19.15" href="/passage/?search=Rev.19.11,Rev.19.15"><span class="bibleref" title="Rev.19.11">Rev. 19:11</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="Rev.19.15">15</span></a>. 3. The nations and their armies shall be given up to the sword (<a class="bibleref" title="Isa.34.2" href="/passage/?search=Isa.34.2">Isa. 34:2</a>): <i>God has delivered them to the slaughter</i>, and then they cannot deliver themselves, nor can all the friends they have deliver them from it. Those only are slain whom God delivers to the slaughter, for the keys of death are in his hand; and, in delivering them to the slaughter, he has <i>utterly destroyed</i> them; their destruction is as sure, when God has doomed them to it, as if they were destroyed already, utterly destroyed. God has, in effect, delivered all the cruel enemies of his church to the slaughter by that word (<a class="bibleref" title="Rev.13.10" href="/passage/?search=Rev.13.10">Rev. 13:10</a>), <i>He that kills with the sword must be killed by the sword</i>, for the Lord is righteous. 4. Pursuant to the sentence, a terrible slaughter shall be made among them (<a class="bibleref" title="Isa.34.6" href="/passage/?search=Isa.34.6">Isa. 34:6</a>): <i>The sword of the Lord</i>, when it comes down with commission, does vast execution; it <i>is filled</i>, satiated, surfeited, <i>with blood</i>, the blood of the slain, and <i>made fat with their fatness</i>. When the day of God’s abused mercy and patience is over the sword of his justice gives no quarter, spares none. Men have by sin lost the honour of the human nature and made themselves like the beasts that perish; they are therefore justly denied the compassion and respect that are owing to the human nature and killed as beasts, and no more is made of slaying an army of men than of butchering a flock of lambs or goats and feeding on the fat of the kidneys of rams. Nay, the sword of the Lord shall not only dispatch the lambs and goats, the infantry of their armies, the poor common soldiers, but (<a class="bibleref" title="Isa.34.7" href="/passage/?search=Isa.34.7">Isa. 34:7</a>) <i>the unicorns</i> too <i>shall</i> be made to <i>come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls</i>, though they are ever so proud, and strong, and fierce (<i>the great men, and the mighty men, and the chief captains</i> <a class="bibleref" title="Rev.6.15" href="/passage/?search=Rev.6.15">Rev. 6:15</a>), the sword of the Lord will make as easy
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